"All the World's a Stage"

on May 11, 2012...a 'forward' added to the following post on Shakespeare

The Shakespeare post below, is not really directly related to the themes of either TAO or the Grail as my blog site usually addresses. However, I thought to include this from Shakespeare since his work from 'As You Like It' is an interesting and also quite humorous theatrical statement made about the evolutionary stages of a human being in a very ordinary course of one life.

As to my own view of the matter, I hold and add that of a higher expectation of humanity. And it is this... to raise our consciousness from ordinary, passive and blind belief in a fated course of life....awakening instead to a spiritual law of existence based in freedom. The choice of each individual in coming to this realization is just that...a matter of freedom.

I further hold that we sub-consciously or consciously create our own individual course of life in close relation to an over-all, pre-birth decision. From this pre-birth decision, there follows one's life something like how Shakespeare puts it, in which 'All the world's a stage'...we pass then follows an after-life when in spirit we recollect and assess one's own previous past life and then after long a expanse of time, prepare for a re-newed earth life in accordance with the spiritual laws of reincarnation and karma.

To my knowledge Shakespeare did not address the issues of reincarnation and karma... as the deeper truths about these spiritual laws were hidden from most of humanity until a time when they could again be exoterically revealed through the exacting spiritual scientific researches of Rudolf Steiner who about 100 years ago began placing these questions against the background of the great responsibility humankind has in fulfilling the ultimate mission of the earth...that of redemption..creating a great community of love in freedom and a resurrected earth in spiritual form. Can this ever be accomplished in a single lifetime? 

The first exoteric teachings of the laws of  re-incarnation and karma were of course brought before humanity through the great teachings of Gautama Buddha, 6th century B.C.. In this teaching we re-incarnate in order to purify our personal passions and ultimately illiminate all karma, and finally with no further need to incarnate, reach Nirvana. In that original teaching, importance is laid on transforming oneself with the goal of doing it for one's own salvation...a goal of supreme enlightenment and doing it in a 'timely manner'. This teaching had it's mission. That of purification or catharsis of our all-too-human self

In our times, spiritual realities have been unveiled through far deeper and wider teachings. They can be grasped by a modern rational consciousness, and understood and penetrated through individual unbiased sound judgement...free from any dogma or faith in a guru worship. Invididual sound judgement, in an of itself, will step-by-step reconcile with the deep longing of each to know oneself in depth and breath. This self-knowledge we can call acheived heart wisdom tested in life. This is the Way of the TAO available to all human beings be they Chinese, European, american or African.

Again, this is a matter in the first place of freedom. But if and when an individual comes to certain inner realizations of certain universal truths ...then they become a profound emancipating...liberating forces for the self in accordance with the universal laws of existence. In my life, this is proven so.

Any modern philosophic thought, religious belief or dogma, one-sided scientific or educational system which today further ignores, negates or hinders paths of oneself or others to understand these ideas, works in opposition to the spiritual evolution of humanity and the earth and therefore can be called anti-Grail or an attack on the further potential and fulfillment of the TAO.

and now for:  
William Shakespeare
born 1564 and died 1616
on the very same day April 23

which is St. George Day
(St. George is the earthly
representative of the present
Time Spirit Mi-cha-el.)

Act 2, scene 7
from 'As You Like It'

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

[Not a very pleasant way to finish!]